Tropical Swap (Key West Capers Book 10) by Shames Laurence

Author:Shames, Laurence [Shames, Laurence]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Southermost Press
Published: 2015-01-29T16:00:00+00:00

Peter had mostly dried off on the bike ride home, but being pushed into the ocean by a giant thug had given sharp new focus to his inchoate and perennial worrying. In fact, as was often the case with chronic worriers, the longer he thought about the incident the more worried he got, even though the immediate danger had passed. Halfway through the cemetery, just a block away from Poorhouse Lane, he stopped his bike and told Meg they had to talk.

They sat down on a low barrier that surrounded someone’s mausoleum and he said, “Honey, listen, I know you were really looking forward to a Florida vacation but, let’s face it, this is not relaxing. Hiding behind the bed with a lamp in my hand in the middle of the night. Babysitting a Mafia princess. Now this Humpty Dumpty routine with some kind of Latino death squad. This isn’t vacation, it’s a panic attack waiting to happen. I really think we need to get out of here.”

Meg said nothing, just sat there looking composed and optimistic and making Peter feel guilty for cutting short their winter getaway and cowardly for wanting to bolt.

He said, “Look, maybe we can find a place in Boca, Orlando, just some normal boring town where stuff like this would never happen.”

Meg considered that as she gazed rather wistfully around the graveyard, at the sweet and compact pastel houses that were clustered along its perimeter, at the flowering trees she hadn’t yet had time to learn the names of and the beckoning lanes and alleyways she hadn’t yet explored. But to her husband’s surprise, she sighed and said, “You’re right. This is getting a little too crazy. I’ll get on the computer and we’ll try to make a different plan.”

So they pedaled back to the Bufano house, intending, first of all, to tell Glenda they’d be leaving. This became extremely awkward when they found her curled up in the fetal pose on the living room sofa, whimpering like a small wounded animal.

On the coffee table in front of her was an empty bottle of pinot grigio and an array of damp and crumpled hankies. She was sniffling extravagantly and when Meg asked her what was wrong, all she could manage to say at first was, “He’s a monster!”

“Who?” said Meg. “Who’s a monster?”

“My father,” said Glenda. “My Benny. Both of them.” And she burst into a fresh torrent of wracking sobs.

Meg sat down on the edge of the sofa and held her bawling new friend by the shoulders but had no idea what she should say.

“My Benny, I’ve wanted so badly to believe he was different,” Glenda sniffled on. “That he wouldn’t really hurt anybody. Now he’s got to kill someone. A woman, no less. A woman! And I still love him. How is that even possible? I’m supposed to sleep with a killer? Kiss him? Scratch his back? But if he doesn’t kill her, he pays the price, and I’m a widow. I almost think that would be less bad…No, God forgive me, I don’t think that.

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